I tried to have this conversation on Facebook and it didn't go very far. To elaborate:

A dustcover hardback book is plain linen bound, a single solid color, with foil imprinting. It's wrapped in a dust jacket printed with the actual cover art and all manner of delightful things.

A casewrap book is like a paperback, with the art stamped right onto the hardcover.

Dustjackets are preferred by the publishing industry and considered more professional, but no one is quite sure why. Yes, it's linen bound instead of paper and cardboard but dust jackets are a pain to keep neat and tidy and they're always getting damaged. And once the dust jacket is gone the book is plain, boring, and run of the mill. Dust jackets date from before they had the technology to do casewrap, but they're still considered superior. Casewrap is usually found on children's books and text books; not proper novels.

Thoughts on both? Personal reading preferences? Alternative suggestions? Go!

For books I want to read and reread and keep on my shelf, I much prefer hardcover with dust-jacket. (My mom has a large roll of some plastic material she got from a library-supply catalog that she uses to protect the dust-jackets of our books.) And for books I might want to read, if the book is hardcover, I prefer to read the blurb on the inside flap of a dust jacket rather than printed on the back like a paperback---dust jackets feel much more professional, like a brief mention "this program is sponsored by so-and-so" on a public radio classical music program rather than a blaring and jarring ad on a commercial station.

Basically, if I'm favorably enough inclined to want the book in hardcover rather than paperback, I want the dust jacket.

There's also the fact that sometimes I want to read and reread the story or stories in a book, and art on the cover is distracting; it's very nice to be able to set the dust-jacket aside and just curl up with the book.

And third, while dust-jackets tend to get beaten up and damaged, my casewrap college textbooks aren't in very good shape either. (Not that I got them new.) As a reader, if I'm inclined to keep a hardcover book, I'd rather the jacket than the book take any damage I might accidentally inflict.

I think this is the main reason I'd prefer a hardcover with a dust jacket. If I want a book that I don't care too much about hurting, I get a paperback. If I get a hardcover, then that means I don't want it to get hurt, and the dust cover protects it, to some degree. The case wrap seems to fall somewhere between those, and I can't really think of a good reason why I would buy one over one of the other two options.

Weeell, sure... but I still love the cloth hardcovers because of how they look and feel, and they have an elegant, simple beauty. Cloth is just bully. Any harm they do come to doesn't show up as much as on a casewrap, too, because of the casewrap's gloss.

In favour of casewrap, I do get a little annoyed by dust covers falling apart over time, and losing the cover art and copy. But that's sort of balanced out by the fact that the dust cover falls apart because it's been taking a beating instead of the actual book.

A hardcover with a dust jacket allows for more options due to the increased space for text and pictures, which makes it better overall, but otherwise, I like them both fine. I wonder if it would be possible to make a casewrap that covered both the inside and outside of the front and back cover? Then it would be better than hardcover, but unfortunately, perhaps more expensive.